Add Links to Operations Manager to a New or Existing Visio Document

Applies To: Operations Manager 2007 R2

The Visio Add-in for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 lets you create a new Microsoft Office Visio document that you can link to Operations Manager objects. The Visio Add-in also lets you add live health state information to an existing Visio document.

To do this, you first specify the Operations Manager root management server (RMS) from which the Visio add-in will get information about the managed objects and their health state. Then, you add the links by using one of the following methods:

Link a single shape to a managed object. You can quickly link a few shapes to any object managed by Operations Manager.

Add multiple links to the document and then associate these to Visio shapes later. This option works best for large documents that have many different types of managed object.

Automatically link shapes in the document to computers and to network devices. This option uses a single wizard to automatically add health state information to large and complex network or topology diagrams.

Insert a new shape that is linked to an Operations Manager object and that uses the Operations Manager icons.

To link a single Visio shape to an object managed by Operations Manager

In a Visio document, do one of the following:

For Visio 2007, click Operations Manager, and then click Link Shape to Data.

For Visio 2010, click Operations Manager in the ribbon, and then click Link Shape.

Select the Operations Manager class of the object, such as Windows Computer, to display a filtered list of available Operations Manager objects.

Select the object that you want to link to this shape, and then click Link.

The shape in the diagram now includes a state indicator in the upper-right corner of the image.

To add multiple links to objects managed by Operations Manager

Click Operations Manager, and then click Add Data Links.

Select the class for the shape, and then click OK.

Select the managed objects you want to link to this shape, and then click Insert.

This adds the selected managed objects to the dataset in the Visio diagram, which can be viewed in the External Data window.

In the External Data window, select the object that you want to connect to a shape in the diagram or image.

For example, if you want to add the RMS for a geographic location to a map, select the RMS.

Drag the object to the diagram or image and drop it onto the shape. This establishes the link between the shape and that managed object’s record.

For Visio 2010, click Operations Manager in the ribbon, and then click Reconcile Shapes.

In the Automatically Link wizard, select Selected shapes or All shapes in the document, and then click Next.

Match the Visio shape property to the Operations Manager property. For example, match the Visio network name to the Operations Manager display name. The following Operations Manager classes are matched automatically:

Windows Computer (Microsoft.Windows.Computer)

Unix Computer (Microsoft.Unix.Computer)

SNMP Network Device (Microsoft.SystemCenter.NetworkDevice)

Click Next.

Review the list of matches. Click to clear any objects you do not want to link, and then click Next.

If more than one match is found, click Select to choose the object you want to link to. If no matches are found, click Browse to search for the object.

Review the list of links to define, and then click Finish.

The shapes are automatically connected to the managed objects they represent on the RMS.